There were four of us bunked into the one hotel room last
night. I got lucky and won the coin toss
and got one of the two beds. The pull
out sofa looked really bad and the cot not much better.
This morning started early with a typical hotel breakfast of
toasted day old bagel and cream cheese, watery orange juice and weak coffee.
Sean who is one of the tour leaders came in last night and took
my advice and made looking into the sick Penske van a priority. We went out and there was a huge puddle of
automatic transmission fluid under the van so he phoned them and within twenty
minutes they had a repair truck on site and a quick determination was made to
get a new van.
I got in the big Ford 4X4 16 passenger window van and headed
off to Calgary to pick up Rob and the chef.
Just a few miles into the trip
there were a bunch of lighted warning signs say that because of paving
operations to expect major delays along Highway 1. So I wheeled the truck on to the Exshaw exit
and went over to the 1A. It is a much
slower and winding road but with no delays.
Rob who is one of the owners of Bike Dreams and Sofia the
chef were waiting for me in the Marlboro Walmart with 5 huge shopping carts of groceries
and supplies for the trip. So we spent
the next three hours sorting, arranging, assembling and testing equipment. Every so often we would discover we needed
something else and would send Rob back in to get it.
It was well after 3 by the time I was ready to head back to
Banff. Sofia and I drove back and took
the 1A to avoid the paving. On the way
we saw a huge herd of mountain goats alongside the road. So far I have seen wild turkeys, a black bear
and the herd of mountain goats. The sky
was looking pretty threatening and tomorrow looks like a very rainy day. When we got to the hotel the new Penske was
waiting and we transferred all the stuff
into it.
This evening Sean took the crew out to an Irish pub for
supper and an organization meeting. It
was a pretty lively discussion as there are a lot of new hands on the
crew. However everyone has a great spirit and I
think it is going to be a great trip.
Terry
2 comments:
Always great to read your blog! Good luck Terry on your latest adventure - as a cycle tour wrangler! It will be good practice for when you come down under to NZ next year as Tour Support Crew!
Terry, thanks for blogging this adventure. Looks like the next couple of days will be cool, if not wet also, so it might be nice to be in the van rather than on a bike.
Ken C.
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